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Japan has changed in important and visible ways

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Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#261

Post by amrocha »

petodo wrote: post #215
kleene_op wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty weird to me as well. I don't understand how you could love a country enough to live and work there for a decade but not try to learn its language.

Let me introduce you to wild idea that language is just tool and has nothing to do really with the country/culture. I may loved China (at least first few years) where I lived for years without loving their politicians and learning language (beyond few useful phrase and numbers), same goes actually for many countries I travelled. My kid is citizen of country A, was born in country B and lives in country C speaking lan…

That idea is insane, it's well established that language shapes thought. Ask any multilingual person and they'll tell you their personality changes from language to language. I'm glad your kid speaks a bunch of languages, but if they don't learn A they'll never be able to fully culturally connect with country A either.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#262

Post by Lio »

ManuelKiessling wrote: post #161
hogepiyo wrote: post #92

It's difficult to take the author of the article being repudiated (Wingfield-Hayes) seriously when he has lived here for over 10 years and doesn't speak the language. Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. Idk, say what you like about how journalists operate but living somewhere for a decade and not speaking the language doesn't…

It’s the one thing where I’m That Old White Man by now. My favorite is user groups meetups in Germany where there are one or two people who don’t speak German, and then request the talk to be held in English. Imagine me attending a meetup in London as the only German and requesting to have the talk held in German. It would be ridiculous.

I'd give it a go if you want to speak German for a bit. However, the conversation is very likely to be skewed towards talking about Kraftwerk, Nue! and careers of Eric Zabel, Jens Voigt and Andre Greipel.

(To be perfectly frank, even if you're speaking in English the conversation is going to be skewed towards Kraftwerk, Nue! and careers of Eric Zabel, Jens Voigt and Andre Greipel. Sorry about that.)

Joking aside, I don't think I've ever met a local that didn't appreciate my attempts to start a conversation in their language even if we eventually switch to English.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#263

Post by ajsnigrutin »

petodo wrote: post #207
djtango wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I find a language hard to learn, I always remind myself that the vast majority of every population can speak their own language. "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. More recently, on observing my niece and nephew, something we take for granted is how exhausting it is being a child. You are learning 247 non stop for best part of 2 decades. Can't understate how hardcore it is. No wonder why we adu…

> "Chinese is hard" -> 1.5B people figured it out. Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home. Learning mother language while growing is very different from learning foreign language as adult. > Can't understate how hardcore it is. No, it isn't for kids, my kids are trilingual without any issues and much effort, kids are like sponges absorbing new information/languages easily, if you start…

> Yeah and at least 90% of them were immersed in it since birth at home

And the guy from the article has been immersed in it since ten years ago. Thats long enough to learn enough to be able to do day-to-day tasks and not expect every local there to adapt to your lazyness of not learning the language.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#264

Post by bigpeopleareold »

epups wrote: post #240
ManuelKiessling wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is spoken by people all around the world, but not all people around the world speak English. Also, those expats living an English life in Berlin etc. are doing themselves a huge disservice — you learn a language if and only if you are forced to hear and speak it. By attending meetups and softly forcing your language onto the group, you are never going to break out of your bubble. It’s a lose-lose situation fo…

> It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, really. The German speaker is limited in what she or he can express, the German audience is limited in what they can understand, the English audience doesn’t progress in learning the language of their new home country. Maybe, but by not learning German they expats miss out on access to about 40 million Germans/Austrians/Swiss who don't also speak English (and they a…

Expats miss out on local job opportunities that need German speakers.

I am not in Germany, but the point applies to other countries. I missed out on extremely good opportunities a few years ago because I didn't speak the local language well (like opps that would have gotten me an easy 20-30% raises. I was constantly having to say no to recruiters because of that one detail, that I was not good enough at the time. I did get good and I did get a good opportunity and I hope in the future that I don't see it any other way that the investment of putting my head into something like that will have a great return in the future.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#265

Post by notch656c »

izacus wrote: post #251
notch656c wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My country has no official language and the lingua franca of my neighborhood is not a language I speak. Shit just got weird because basically no one would not consider me part of this society and I sure as hell understand it roughly as well as anybody else in my hood. Maybe America is just weird but you can come here and not learn English and if someone refuses your right to comment on our society they'll probably ju…

Your country isn't the whole rest of the world. I thought that would be obvious for an average HNer?

I would think one would look at the original quote and see it says:

"私は日本語がかなり下手です" [0]

Not being good at something is not the same thing as having refused to learn it. From the authors response I honestly can't assess their level of Japanese well. I routinely have had people tell me they don't speak English well but then have a full conversation with them.

https://twitter.com/wingcommander1/status/161706014073333760...

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#266

Post by ajsnigrutin »

pavlov wrote: post #107
rullelito wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. You haven't been to Sweden then.

Or Finland, or the Netherlands, etc. English is so widely spoken in these countries that many foreigners manage entirely without learning the local language. It’s got to the point that in central Helsinki, you often can’t get service in Finnish in bars or restaurants.

> It’s got to the point that in central Helsinki, you often can’t get service in Finnish in bars or restaurants.

That would really suck if you were a native Finn and don't speak english, and the service worker in your own country doesn't speak your local language.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#267

Post by tlb »

csdvrx wrote: post #52
Fordec wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2.1 is steady state of just one for one replace those dying with new people. What numbers around 1.0 are are logarithmic decline as the population functionally keeps halving which is also hard to plan an economy around paying for two old people and child on the taxes per single worker.

Then maybe the welfare state is no longer suited to the country population profile, and each person show be saving for their own retirement and children?

Saving doesn't solve the problem. In fact, no re-allocation of money would provide a good standard of living with only a small young population to do all the work while a large old population consumes.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#268

Post by mvcatsifma »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #235
sho_hn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Any other person who lived in a country for a decade and can't converse in the language would be (rightfully imo) shamed for it. I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead. People should learn languages if they feel a reason t…

Berlin is full of people with attitudes like that (both local and foreign), and that's part of the reason why the city is in such a sorry state. It's funny, in addition to those expats who only speak American/British you get a ton of immigrants who speak neither English nor German in a way that any sort of meaningful conversation would be possible. But it doesn't matter because no one cares, not even the government.…

Amsterdam is like that, maybe just a bit less dysfunctional. I think it's a matter of respect and decency to learn the language of the country you live in.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#269

Post by ajsnigrutin »

petodo wrote: post #150
pavlov wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Finland, or the Netherlands, etc. English is so widely spoken in these countries that many foreigners manage entirely without learning the local language. It’s got to the point that in central Helsinki, you often can’t get service in Finnish in bars or restaurants.

This is also starting to happen in Prague city center, though the real reason is those overpriced tourist traps are not frequented by locals so there is no need for staff to speak local language, it should be enough warning for you (as local) that you are in tourist trap.

I've been to prague every few years for decades now, and the whole city center has become just a giant tourist trap. Sadly the same is happening to many other old european capitals to the point where they all look and feel the same... some old buildings, a river and tourist traps and scams.

Re: Japan has changed in important and visible ways

#270

Post by epups »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #256
epups wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior generations of Europeans were also xenophobic as hell, to the point of going to war with each other. I really don't understand which idyllic past you refer to here.

Everybody has gone to war with eachother in every continent all the way through history. If you go live in a country (long-term, which 10 years is), you should learn the language and not expect the locals to try to conform to your not-knowing the language... you're there, it's their country, their language, not vice-versa. How can you expect a country where people employed there don't know the local language to even…

If I live in the country for 10 years, then it is my country too. Perhaps it is in my interest to learn the language, and perhaps it isn't. There are plenty of countries in the world where people get by perfectly fine without even having a unifying language.

Do you guys know how every language came to be? It was through the interaction of people from different cultures, and it is an ongoing process. Germany was not even a country not so long ago. I reject the normative notion that learning a language is central to being a positive member of a community.

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